Public school kids bear the curse of learning crisis

Raul J. Palabrica, wrote: “A tough job lies ahead for the DepEd to improve … the quality of education of the Filipino youth … That would require the expertise of an academically skilled and experienced educator, not a politician” (“Low workforce educational level,” Business, 12/12/23).

The one who heads the government’s biggest bureaucracy (with a budget of P924.7 billion) should have no political ambitions or business interests because their decisions will most certainly be driven and motivated by their very nature, orientation, training, and experience. A business-minded person will always gravitate toward ventures and schemes that will bring in the money for him. A politician heading a government department will naturally use that office for his selfish ends, in a bid to stay in power for as long as he can.

An educator, one who is not beholden to a political party or business empire, one who is truly dedicated, committed, honest, and sincere, is the one needed to rectify the Department of Education’s (DepEd) many errors, booboos, defects, and deficiencies.

Filipino students are five to six years behind in the three major subjects of reading, science, and math compared to their counterparts in other countries. These children of a lesser good are accidental martyrs to the hubris and arrogance of unlimited power and unbridled wealth, wielded by those who are supposed to teach and educate them but don’t. What these bureaucratic politicians and businessmen have managed to do is to spawn a generation of uneducated, uncultured Filipinos, the booboisie of Philippine society. Our students bear the curse of having studied in our public schools and they will go through life lost and listless in a perpetual fog of ignorance and poverty.

We need somebody who will lead Filipino students out of the Egypt of their disaffection and discontent. We need somebody who will ensure that our students really get to study and learn the lessons necessary for them to withstand and overcome the long-term damage inflicted upon them by the current education crisis. DepEd needs academically skilled, experienced, and qualified educators to lead and save it from total chaos and collapse.

Antonio Calipjo Go,

Novaliches, Quezon City